The Detroit Future City (DFC) Implementation Office was one of several Detroit-based partners that participated in a recent German Marshall Fund (GMF) research trip through the Ruhr Valley, Germany, and Amsterdam, Netherlands. The five-day initiative, from October 18 to 22, examined how former industrial sites and facilities are being adaptively reutilized. Here are a sample of photos […]
On Tuesday, Oct. 27, a group of metro Detroiters gathered in the basement auditorium of the Detroit Institute of Arts to hear a panel of experts discuss something that’s long eluded the communities of southeast Michigan: how to create a shared regional vision that will help us attract and retain talent, jobs, and tax base […]
In the first half of the 20th Century, two areas on the northeast side of Detroit’s central business district teemed with African American residents, retail businesses and entertainment venues. The crowded neighborhoods of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley were two of the very few areas blacks were allowed to live, yet they provided economic opportunity […]
In a cultural coup for Detroit, the U.S. State Department has chosen the Motor City to be the entire focus of the American pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale, the world’s premier exhibition of architectural innovation. Beginning next May in Venice, Italy, the U.S. exhibit, one of dozens of national exhibits on display, will be curated by […]
A global spotlight will shine on ideas for repurposing four Detroit sites in an exhibit at the 2016 Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy, next spring. The exhibition — called “The Architectural Imagination” — will feature the Packard Plant, the Dequindre Cut, the downtown U.S. Post Office building, and a vacant Detroit Public Works Department yard […]
The Detroit Future City project has issued a field guide for city residents. Its purpose is to give ideas to Detroiters about how to re-form empty lots or back yards into spaces that can improve the city and the environment. Dan Kinkead is the Acting Executive Director for Detroit Future City. Erin Kelley is theDFC’s Manager […]
After decades of population loss, many of Detroit’s neighborhoods are faced with an overabundance of vacant lots where houses once stood. Even the city’s healthiest, densest areas aren’t immune. Over 23.4 square miles of the city — 16.8 percent of Detroit’s total area — is vacant land, and that excludes parks and rights of way. […]
DETROIT — In its effort to revitalize, Detroit is putting even worms to work. On an east side lot last week, forestry workers with the non-profit Greening of Detroit scattered 85,000 worms onto a newly tilled vacant lot. The worms, if they do their job right, will burrow several feet into the ground, loosening up the soil and thus […]
Detroit has about 23 square miles of vacant land, and as city officials prepare to demolish more blighted homes each month, that number could reach as high as 30 square miles in coming years. Now, there a tool to help Detroiters transform vacant land from neighborhood liabilities to landscaped assets. On Monday, Detroit Future City […]
In its effort to revitalize, Detroit is putting even worms to work. On an east side lot last week, forestry workers with the non-profit Greening of Detroit scattered 85,000 worms onto a newly tilled vacant lot. The worms, if they do their job right, will burrow several feet into the ground, loosening up the soil and thus […]